Closing institutional gaps for sustainable planning and management of Biosphere Reserves across Vietnam.

In October and November, the School of Natural and Rural Systems Management (NRSM) at the University of Queensland will host Vietnamese government officials in a collaborative effort to build capacity for integrated planning and management of Vietnam’s Biosphere Reserves.

NRSM sees an interdisciplinary approach as the only way to deal with such complex management challenges, and is a leading institution globally in integrating environmental concerns across fields through the use of systems modeling and analyses.

The initiative, supported by AusAID through the Australian Leadership Awards Fellowships program, is the culmination of over 3 years of close collaboration between NRSM, Hai Phong People’s Committee, and the Hanoi National University of Education. Over this period institutional gaps and knowledge management were identified as key constraints to the sustainable management of the Biosphere Reserve Network in Vietnam.

Closing these gaps and enhancing the ability of relevant government agencies to capture lessons for sustainable development is therefore the goal of this project. In 2007, through the work of NRSM and Hai Phong City, the Cat Ba Island Biosphere Reserve was established as the world’s first “Learning Laboratory” for sustainable development. This provides an ideal framework for the capture and uptake of lessons to feed back into grassroots initiatives for not only conservation, and poverty alleviation, but for the development of locally grown technologies to mitigate climate change across Communes in Biosphere Reserves. Such a framework allows for more effective replication of projects nationally, and avoids the constraints to capturing lessons across multiple small-scale development and conservation projects in a given area.

Building on the Learning Laboratory concept, 11 officials from the National Office for Sustainable Development (MPI), the Centre for Education Technology (MOET), the Hai Phong City People’s Committee, Hanoi National University of Education, and senior managers from across Cat Ba Biosphere Reserve Departments (including Tourism, Planning, Environment & Natural Resources, and International Cooperation), will travel to Queensland Australia to undertake short courses at NRSM. Bringing these decision makers and planners from across government departments – vertically and horizontally – lays the foundation for more integrated planning across Biosphere Reserves and other protected areas in Vietnam.

Courses will cover key topics identified during a workshop in Hanoi in October 2007, including Gender issues in NRM and Rural Development; Integrated Planning and Management; Communication and Information Flows; and Models & Strategies for Change. Importantly the courses will be coupled with workshops with related industry groups and Queensland government agencies and field visits to best-practice Biosphere Reserves and World Heritage sites across the State.

On return to Vietnam, the group will work closely on a collaborative planning exercise that draws on lessons and models from their inputs in Queensland.

For further enquiries about this program and the Learning Laboratory concept, please contact Ashley Brooks at NRSM (abroox@yahoo.com).